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      <p>
        There are two output formats used by the <a href="../api_reference/C/db_dump.html" class="olink">db_dump</a> utility and
        <a href="../api_reference/C/db_dump.html" class="olink">db_dump185</a> utility.
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      <p>
        In both output formats, the first few lines of the output
        contain header information describing the underlying access
        method, filesystem page size, and other bookkeeping
        information.
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      <p>
        The header information starts with a single line, VERSION=N,
        where N is the version number of the dump output
        format.
    </p>
      <p>
        The header information is then output in name=value pairs,
        where name may be any of the keywords listed in the <a href="../api_reference/C/db_load.html" class="olink">db_load</a> utility
        manual page, and value will be its value. Although this header
        information can be manually edited before the database is
        reloaded, there is rarely any reason to do so because all of
        this information can also be specified or overridden by
        command-line arguments to the <a href="../api_reference/C/db_load.html" class="olink">db_load</a> utility.
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      <p>
        The header information ends with single line
        HEADER=END.
    </p>
      <p>
        Following the header information are the key/data pairs from
        the database. If the database being dumped is a Btree or Hash
        database, or if the <span class="bold"><strong>-k</strong></span> option
        was specified, the output will be paired lines of text where
        the first line of the pair is the key item, and the second
        line of the pair is its corresponding data item. If the
        database being dumped is a Queue or Recno database, and the
        <span class="bold"><strong>-k</strong></span> option was not
        specified, the output will be lines of text where each line is
        the next data item for the database. Each of these lines is
        preceded by a single space.
    </p>
      <p>
        If the <span class="bold"><strong>-p</strong></span> option was
        specified to the <a href="../api_reference/C/db_dump.html" class="olink">db_dump</a> utility or <a href="../api_reference/C/db_dump.html" class="olink">db_dump185</a> utility, the key/data lines
        will consist of single characters representing any characters
        from the database that are <span class="emphasis"><em>printing
        characters</em></span> and backslash (<span class="bold"><strong>\</strong></span>) 
        escaped characters for any that were not.
        Backslash characters appearing in the output mean one of two
        things: if the backslash character precedes another backslash
        character, it means that a literal backslash character
        occurred in the key or data item. If the backslash character
        precedes any other character, the next two characters must be
        interpreted as hexadecimal specification of a single
        character; for example, <span class="bold"><strong>\0a</strong></span>
        is a newline character in the ASCII character set.
    </p>
      <p>
        Although some care should be exercised, it is perfectly
        reasonable to use standard text editors and tools to edit
        databases dumped using the <span class="bold"><strong>-p</strong></span>
        option before reloading them using the <a href="../api_reference/C/db_load.html" class="olink">db_load</a> utility.
    </p>
      <p>
        Note that the definition of a printing character may vary
        from system to system, so database representations created
        using the <span class="bold"><strong>-p</strong></span> option may be
        less portable than those created without it.
    </p>
      <p>
        If the <span class="bold"><strong>-p</strong></span> option in not
        specified to <a href="../api_reference/C/db_dump.html" class="olink">db_dump</a> utility or <a href="../api_reference/C/db_dump.html" class="olink">db_dump185</a> utility, each output line will
        consist of paired hexadecimal values; for example, the line
        <span class="bold"><strong>726f6f74</strong></span> is the string
        <span class="bold"><strong>root</strong></span> in the ASCII
        character set.
    </p>
      <p>
        In all output formats, the key and data items are ended by a
        single line DATA=END.
    </p>
      <p>
        Where multiple databases have been dumped from a file, the
        overall output will repeat; that is, a new set of headers and
        a new set of data items.
    </p>
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